Sales for the first low-cost flights between Bermuda and England have reached six-figures after only a month in operation.

Zoom Airlines' inaugural flight touched down in Bermuda to much fanfare on June 8 this year as the airline began its twice weekly direct flight between London's Gatwick Airport and the L.F. Wade International Airport.

C Travel, Bermuda's largest travel agency had teamed up with the airline to be the exclusive marketing and sales outlet and yesterday Carl Paiva, chief executive officer of C Travel said the sales for Zoom airlines have gone extremely well.

"Most of the flights have been sold out in July and August this year and officers at Zoom Airlines in London are more than delighted at the progress of this new airline. It has been doing extremely well."

Mr. Paiva revealed the success of the first month of flights has led to lots of opportunity to move forward with the service offered in Bermuda- a service which currently offers the only competition for British Airways.

Zoom Airlines Ltd. is a UK-based sister company to Zoom Airlines Inc. the existing Canadian low-fares full-service airline which launched operations in 2002. Zoom flies Boeing 767-300ER aircraft on transatlantic services and has two on-board travel classes, premium economy and economy.

And currently, Zoom offers two flights from Bermuda to London for as low as $249 for a one way ticket, tax included.

Flights depart from Bermuda on Tuesday evenings at 7.30 p.m. and arrive into London Gatwick at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, while the Saturday evening flight from Bermuda will leave at 9.30 p.m. and arrive in London at 7.55 a.m. on Sunday.

From London, flights leave at 1 p.m. on Wednesday and arrive in Bermuda at 4.15 p.m. while the Sunday flight leaves at 11 a.m. and arrives in Bermuda at 2.15 p.m.

However, lacking approval, called ETOPS, from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to fly a route that is more than 60 minutes from an emergency or diversion airport, means Zoom must fly across Greenland to reach London.

ETOPS is an approval that is necessary for all twin-engined planes such as Boeing 737, 757,767 and 777 as well as Airbus A300, A310, A320 and A330, that fly long distance routes especially over water.

Mr. Paiva said he believed the approval would come shortly and it would be the first time an airline had actually challenged British Airways and received approval to fly the direct route. It will also mean the current Zoom flight time which is almost nine hours will be cut down to around six hours.

When asked whether Zoom Airlines planned to expand its service to daily flights, like the service currently offered by British Airwarys, Mr. Paiva would only say that anything in business would evolve.

"Reviews from our clients have been more than complimentary so there looks like a lot of opportunity to move forward with the Bermuda service, however, I am not at liberty to discuss the next stage.We are, however, waiting for ETOPS approval, which should be coming any day now.

"We will also have our own online booking tool for Zoom and will be called www.zoom.bm. That will be happening very shortly, which will simplify things because you will be able to purchase tickets 24 hours a day 7 days a week."

Zoom tickets selling well